the byron family: Sound the alarm!

...and join the firefighting crew, Benjamin is turning 2!

This is Ben's super cute Birthday Invitation (minus our personal info)!

We weren't planning on having a "party" for Benjamin because we had planned our family vacation for just a few days after his birthday. We were going to be with the Byron side the first half of the vacay and my family the second half, so we didn't want everyone to travel twice and we knew we would get to celebrate twice already!

Then the mommy guilt started to set in about 10 days before the big day. Would I regret not having a party? Would Ben look back one day at the photobooks (that one day I will put together) and ask me "Why didn't I have a 2nd birthday party?"... probably not. BUT... at like 11 oclock at night I got onto etsy and ordered the above invite, printed them the next day and mailed them out. Giving guests about a week's notice :) haha. We kept it really small and just had local friends come celebrate with us. All of Ben's favorite people came and he had a BLAST!

The amazing firemen from the Vestavia Hills Fire Dept. came out to our house and Ben got to play on a real live firetruck! He was in AWE. He was kinda scared at first... and then quickly warmed up and wanted to drive, open all of the doors and play with all of the cool "toys". He jumped off the back several times! The firemen were SO nice and it was just so great that they did that free of charge! We are going to take them a thank you note and some donuts one of these days to express our thankfulness!

Engine #2 for the cutest 2-year-old in the WORLD!

High Five for the firemen!

(there is a picture of Ben in the driver's window of the firetruck!)

gotta love Edgar's cake! yummm

Matt and I each picked out just one gift for Ben. Learning from last year... there is no need for us to go crazy because we have LOTS of friends and family that do that for us! I picked out the Fisher Price Little People Garage and Matt picked out the Fisher Price Little People Zoo. It is still up for debate which is his favorite :)

Chris and SaSa gave him the cutest little Workshop where he spends hours hammering and has even mastered the screwing and sawing! Brittany, Scott and baby AS gave him a very cool fireman outfit and choochoo sandwich maker. He is one loved little boy!